


Don’t Scare Me Like That

by fizzysugarwrites



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Angey Smooch, Confessions, Going MIA, M/M, Messy confessions, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:49:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27910288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fizzysugarwrites/pseuds/fizzysugarwrites
Summary: Cole has been missing in action for five days straight, and today he finally shows back up! Oh boy, wonder what’ll happen next :)I imagine this is set between s10 and s11, while they’re just vibin in the monastery
Relationships: Cole/Jay Walker
Comments: 13
Kudos: 65





	Don’t Scare Me Like That

Five days. Cole had been radio-silent on his undercover mission for five days. No messages, no picking up calls,  _ nothing _ . Everyone was worried about it. Cole had always had a pretty regular schedule when it came to checking in. So  _ something  _ had to be wrong. Some - particularly Jay, Kai, and Lloyd - expected the worst, because that’s what anxiety does to a mfer. For a good portion of the fifth day, they all had thought Cole was a goner.

Until Cole just… showed up on the monastery doorstep with an indignant crook hoisted over his shoulder, tied and gagged. Certainly not dead. Everyone promptly lost their shit, of course.

“WHAT THE FUCK COLE?!” Lloyd screeched, after Cole deposited the captee in a surprisingly prompt police car. “It’s been almost a damn week! We nearly thought you DIED!” He threw his hands up as Nya folded her arms and gave Cole a sort of withering glare, under which he winced. Zane just looked relieved he’d made it back in one piece, while a dumbfounded Kai had stepped away to send the news to Jay, who was out on patrol. Cole blew some hair out of his face and scanned across the various, furious faces of his friends, looking kind of guilty and sheepish. Man he’d fucked up this time, huh.

“Yeah, I know, my burner phone went kaput. And then I got too deep undercover, lost track of time.” Cole wrung his hands, trying to be sincere about this. “I’m really really sorry and it won’t happen again. Ninja’s honor.” He then put his hand over his heart, looking around the room again. Nya remained glaring at him for a second, but was the first to relent, Lloyd following soon after.

“Of course, we forgive you,” she started, but looked back up at him with a sort of disappointed gaze. “But you scared us. You scared us bad. Jay most of all, you know how he gets with radio silence. I know it was beyond your control but… still.” 

Cole grimaced and rubbed his arm, now feeling a bit worse. He hated making Jay worry himself into a stupor like that. Even more unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time he’d worried the guy. “Yeah… I’ll make it up to him with something, even if he doesn’t stay mad long.” He glanced around, noticing a distinct lack of his favorite blue ninja. “Where is he, by the by? On patrol?”

“I just texted him! And he left me on Read!” Kai piped up as he turned the corner into the main hall again. “Sooooo I’m guessin he’s pissed and on his way here already.”

“Aw man,” Cole muttered. When Jay was pissed it basically sucked the mood out of the room for him. This was gonna suck for a while. Hopefully he could make it up to him sooner rather than later. Maybe he’d help him in the workshop? Try and draw him something? Or maybe-

_ *Slam*  _ went the door behind them as it swung open, and Cole whirled on his heel as the others looked up to see a properly furious Jay standing there. Just, positively seething, face all scrunched up and kind of red, looking right at Cole with those  lowkey gorgeous green eyes.

Cole immediately found himself fumbling his words to try and quell whatever yelling Jay was about to take part in. “Ah! Jay! Hey, listen sparkplug, I’m really really sorry I went quiet out there, I got caught up and my burner died and I-I’ll make it up to you, I promMMMN?!”

In all his fumbling, he hadn’t noticed Jay march across the room. He hadn’t noticed him come right up to Cole, quite close, in the span of a few steps.

He did, however, notice when Jay snatched him by the black ninja hood hanging loosely around his neck, tugged him down to his level, and gave Cole what might’ve been the angriest kiss he’d ever received.

Cole very nearly fainted. Jay was  _ kissing  _ him, on the mouth, in front of literally their entire team, after he’d gotten back from a mission. Was it because he was safe? Was it because Jay missed him? Was it just a lot of pent-up frustration and anxiety manifesting in some strange ways? Cole didn’t know. For a beat, Cole didn’t care. He just stood there, eyes wide, absolutely dumbfounded, face going redder with each second. Too stunned to even use his hands or anything, they just hovered uselessly at his sides.

When Jay finally released him, his own face looked even redder than it had a second ago, and he still looked angry, giving Cole a forceful little glare that made him feel like a deer in headlights. The blue ninja still had a grip on the black fabric of Cole’s hood, and still held it so that their faces were mere inches from each other, hell their  _ noses  _ were still touching. Then Jay spoke up, sounding only slightly less serious than he looked. “You scare me like that again, and there’s gonna be hell to pay, Brookstone!”

Cole just stared back at Jay in response, mouth hanging slightly open and blinking. Shocked out of words. He managed, however, to regain enough of his wits to nod dumbly as an actual answer to Jay, who seemed satisfied with that answer and let go of his hood, promptly stepping back and turning around, all huffy all of a sudden. The room was dead quiet. Cole’s mind was absolutely  _ spinning,  _ like he’d come out of a messy Spinjitzu move or something.

Jay took a step away, then two, then froze. Cole could tell, even when he was turned around, that he’d gotten a new wave of blush that spread to the tips of his ears. All of his intimidating posture suddenly fell away and he let out an embarrassed squeak. Before  _ any _ one could say  _ any _ thing, the blue ninja suddenly dashed out of the room again, slamming a different door shut.

“Wh- Jay!” Cole had managed to sputter through his clearly flustered emotions. That was enough to break the dam of silence among them.

“Ha HAAA!” Kai suddenly barked out a laugh. “Oh man! I can’t believe it! He finally did it!”   


“WhAT?” Cole squawked, whipping his head around to stare at the cackling red ninja. “What the hell do you mean ‘finally’?! I- what is-”

“Oh, master’s sake, you have  _ no  _ idea how long I was waiting for him to do that! He’s been jabbering about you for  _ months!”  _ Kai was, obviously, tickled pink at this concept. Cole was not. His face was still burning, and he crossed the room to grab Kai by the shoulders and shake him.

“KAI YOU BETTER NOT BE JOKING!” Cole yelled, then swiveled around to look at the others. “I- Is he joking? I don’t-”   


“I am  _ not  _ joking! How rude!” Kai retorted in mock-annoyance. Cole bit his lip and looked at the faces of the others as a more accurate gage. Nya gestured with her hands in a sort of ‘yeah, pretty much’ shrug.

“He isn’t joking, Jay also told me about it,” She responded blithely. Cole’s jaw dropped again, and he let go of Kai. “I just wasn’t expecting him to go all out right then, certainly. But that bell can’t be unrung.” Zane nodded along, and when Cole turned his incredulous look on Zane, because  _ he  _ apparently knew too, Zane did a little dismissive gesture and cracked a sheepish smile.

“Oh, don’t worry, Nya was the one that told me. Apparently I can keep a secret.” Cole’s gaze switched to Lloyd, who looked about as confused as he was. The green ninja threw up his hands and turned away.

“I’m just here, don’t involve me. But it does make sense.” With that, Lloyd tapped out of the conversation. Cole was left standing there, still sort of reeling.

Jay _wanted_ to kiss him. Jay had apparently been wanting to kiss him for a while. Jay liked him, not just in a friend way but in a ‘been jabbering about you for months’ kind of way. Jay… loved him. The word echoed around in his brain for a second as the short-term memories of the last minute or so did too.

Nya said something, but Cole didn’t process it. He was too busy suddenly thinking about how very much he’d like to kiss Jay again. Sucks that he was so shocked he didn’t even take a chance to enjoy it a second ago, it was so  _ fantastic. _ Soft, even while Jay was pissed the hell off. He tasted like watermelon bubblegum - he was probably chewing it on his way back. Cole hadn’t noticed, outwardly, but he looked kind of listless as he basically fantasized about a second kiss for a good few seconds. 

Master’s sake, he  _ was  _ in love.

“Cole! Realm to Cole!” Nya snapped a finger in front of his face and pulled him right out of his lovestruck stupor. “Are you listening? I asked if you were gonna go talk to him!”

“Huh? What? Talk to- oh!” Cole blinked, then hesitantly shook his head. “Now?! I can’t talk to him now, he’s probably freaking out! I don’t think he meant to kiss me right-here-right-now…”

“Exactly the reason why you’re going to talk to him, right-here-right-now,” Nya pressed, ushering him towards the hallway Jay had disappeared down. Cole sputtered and backtracked.

“But I don’t want to intrude on him! I don’t wanna make-”

“Cole, listen to me.” Nya stepped around the earth ninja to face him. “Jay just threw you an easy pitch, are you going to swing, or not?” When Cole just kinda blinked at her, she sighed. “Look, you love him, right?”

Cole blinked again, then nodded. “... yeah. I-I do.”

“Then  _ tell  _ him. Tell him however you want to, but tell him, otherwise I feel like he’s just going to hide.” Her voice grew soft at that last bit, and she stepped aside from Cole, leaving him at the entrance to the hallway.

Cole took a deep breath. Nya was right, as per usual. Cole needed to tell Jay how he felt about him, otherwise he was going to beat himself up for being so impulsive as to kiss him then and there. And he certainly didn’t need to do that, not when Cole felt so very much the same about him as he did to Cole.

Briefly, Cole glanced back at the others. Zane gave him an encouraging thumbs-up, and Kai was still smirking a mile a minute, but that was just how he was. Lloyd had checked out, and Cole was alright with that. He turned back to the hallway.

Here goes nothing.

________________________________________________________________

Cole figured out where Jay was pretty quick. He simply followed the muffled screaming to Jay’s room. Man he hoped he didn’t fuck this up. Silently he pushed the door open.

“I am the stupidest man alive, Mr. Cuddlywomp.  _ The  _ stupidest.”

Oh. Jay was talking to his lil stuffed… donkey? Cole never quite figured out what that animal was supposed to be. Anyway. Cole tuned back in.

“I can’t believe I even  _ did  _ that, master’s sake! Ugh! If I had a nickel for every dumbass decision I made while worried sick about him I’d be able to buy the Fritz Donnegan series and rewrite it top to bottom!” Jay threw up his hands before flopping backwards onto his bed and hugging the stuffed toy to his chest. Cole bit his lip. What was he waiting for?

Jay sighed heavily. “Man, what if I just… left? Just ran away from allllll my problems and alllll my feelings on stupid, lovely, too-damn-pretty guys-”

“Don’t leave!”

“GAH-” On reflex, Jay yeeted Mr. Cuddlywomp across the room and hit Cole squarely in the face as he opened the door all the way and stepped in. Cole deftly caught the flying plushie, and glanced up at the now Startled Jay.

“... hey,” Cole spoke again after a moment, realizing he’d been just kind of staring at Jay for a second.

“Hey! Uh!” Jay sputtered, springing off the bed and stepping over to Cole, hastily snatching Mr. Cuddlywomp from his arms and stuffing it under a pillow before whirling around back to Cole. “Uh- hey, so- look, I-I can explain all that-”

“That’s fine, but I don’t need you to,” Cole reassured, stepping inwards and towards Jay more. Quite close already. The shorter fellow turned a vibrant pink at the gesture, and despite Cole’s reassurance, began babbling an explanation anyway.

“I just got really mad, kind of for dumb reasons, and that all kind of just- bubbled up, like- like soup when you leave it on high for too long, and that kind of coupled with some feelings and was just really messy overall…” Jay ran his hands through his hair and for all the world looked frazzled out of his mind. He kept going, despite Cole’s ‘calm-down’ gesture.

“And, uh, t-to clarify what I mean by feelings, I… I do mean that I might definitely be in love with you. Just so it’s all out there because I might die from embarrassment anyway, uh…” Jay glanced up to Cole and cracked a sheepish, nervous smile. Cole returned it so genuinely that it surprised the short ninja to silence for a beat. He babbled again, trying to rationalize everything. If he wasn’t itching to smooch him again, Cole would’ve found it very endearing.

“I-I hope I’m not messing this up, this is kind of the wrong setting for this, uh…” Jay trailed off, gazing up into Cole’s eyes. Kind of starstruck. Cole took this as his opportunity, letting his hand ghost up along Jay’s side and end up sort of resting on his shoulder, gently. The shorter fellow kind of shuddered, and Cole almost scoffed at how quickly Jay was softening then and there. By the master, he was cute.

Jay stared at him still, like he was in disbelief of what was happening. Hopeful, certainly, but confused. Like he didn’t get it. “Cole… I… I don’t ge-mm!”

Now it was his turn to be cut off. By a much  _ less  _ angry kiss, from a surprisingly eager Ninja of Earth. Cole practically melted right into him, humming softly. This felt even better the second time around, as he leaned into Jay and put his hand in his hair, gently pulling him in. The hand resting on his shoulder dipped down and hooked around his back as Cole sort of leaned over to meet him. Jay was stiff for a moment, perfectly enjoying it, to be sure, but not sure what to do with the rest of his body. Then he promptly relaxed, and looped his arms around Cole’s neck as they held the kiss for far longer this time.

Once Cole was pretty sure Jay wanted this, he let go of the back of Jay’s head and wrapped both arms around his back instead, lifting him up off the floor just a bit. Jay stayed pretty much where he was, arms around Cole’s neck and pretty much melting into this surprisingly long kiss. Contrary to Jay’s quiet enjoyment of the moment, Cole was smiling stupidly into him, because by the master this was all he ever wanted.

Eventually, Cole pulled back, with Jay still hoisted into his arms. Jay let his own arms loosen and hang over Cole’s shoulders, kind of panting slightly. But a brilliant smile was on his face nonetheless, staring starstruck at Cole. Finally he spoke up, breathless and shocked. “I-I was worried I’d mucked it up! I didn’t even have a plan for this!”

“Oho, babe, you  _ know  _ our better moments come entirely unplanned,” Cole crowed, sounding suaver than he ever expected himself to. Jay let out a surprised little giggle at the pet name, which honestly just made Cole want to kiss him again.

“Ha! You called me babe!” Jay squeaked, absolutely elated. Cole chuckled, warm and loving, and Jay was just- all smiles for miles, right at him. Dazzling. Cole leaned up and caught another short kiss from him again, feeling Jay smile into it this time. Why hadn’t he gotten up the courage to do this sooner, man-oh-MAN.

That kiss soon broke away, though, because Jay was just a giggly little mfer and it was ADORABLE but it was also very difficult to smooch while laughing. Eventually, this whole debacle just devolved into a fit of laughter between the both of them as Cole finally set Jay down on his feet. The blue ninja managed to regain enough of his composure before grabbing Cole by the hood again and falling backwards onto the bed, pulling Cole down with him. Cole yelped in surprise, but soon kept laughing, smiling down at the giggly bastard now pinned under him.

“Man, I love you,” Jay managed to say after regaining his composure again, leaning up again and bonking his forehead against Cole’s. “Didn’t expect it to come out this way, but ah well.”

“Well, it ain’t what I expected either, but I love you too. In ways I honestly can’t describe right now, because I’ll just sound like a lovesick fool.” Cole cracked a sheepish smile down at Jay, who decided to pout and be even cuter than he already was.

“Aw, but you’re so  _ cute  _ when you sound like a lovesick fool!” Jay remarked in mock-disappointment, reaching up and squishing Cole’s cheeks. Cole scoffed, and promptly flopped down onto Jay properly this time, earning a delighted yelp from the other. “Ahh! Get off! You’re heaaaavy!”

“Nuh-uh!” Cole retorted, grinning at the still-giggly Jay, who was now squishing his face in retaliation.

“Stoooooop!” Jay giggled through his attempts at protest, and Cole chuckled right back, before getting an even more fun idea. Promptly, he grabbed Jay around the waist and rolled to the side, so now they had basically swapped positions. Jay clung to Cole like a damn koala with another delighted shriek, trying to halfway sit up despite Cole’s arms around his waist keeping him firmly where he was. He was still giggling, goofily, and Cole couldn’t stop smiling.

“You’re one of a kind, Jay Walker. I wouldn’t want you any other way.” Cole definitely had some heart-eyes-mfer going on there. Jay grinned right back at him, big and shiny and dazzling as always.

“This is the messiest confession I’ve ever had, by far,” Jay started, leaning on his arms on Cole’s chest. “... wouldn’t have it any other way.” Cole smirked, and leaned up just slightly to kiss Jay on the nose.

It  _ was  _ messy. It was clumsy. But then again, it was perfect anyway.


End file.
